Dan and the Caverns of Bone Read Online Free

sound.
    There are kids everywhere, mostly my own age or thereabouts, and what with all the styled hair and guy-liner, and the uncertain candle light, I can hardly tell who’s a boy and who’s a girl. Not that it really matters. I’m looking for one person in particular, and I’d know her anywhere.
    And I don’t have to look for long because there she is – Lucifane – lying on the back of an enormous sofa like a midnight panther waiting for her prey. Those oh-so-familiar eyes flash in the smoke and flicker, and she gives me a lazy wave. I wave back, and sense Si twitching beside me as he tries to work out if she can see him or not.
    As she uncurls herself and makes her way over, I look around, take in the view. It’s pretty awesome. There are skull candles everywhere, which somehow makes the dancing seem all the livelier, and maybe that’s the point. The atmosphere is thick with shadows, attitude, and – is that incense? The music’s great too, though I’ve never heard it before. And then I see something that really makes the eyebrows shoot up.
    On the arm of an ornate antique chair beside me is a pair of purple shades! Just lying there, like it was meant to be or something. And there’s a kid sitting in the chair, with half a dozen other pairs of coloured specs on his forehead, and more poking out of his pockets and round about. He sees me looking at the purple ones, and maybe it’s the surprise on my face, I don’t know, but he snaps his fingers and points at them.
    â€˜He is saying you can ’ave them.’ Lucifane is at my side, though she has to shout to make herself heard. ‘He sells them to tourists. Take them – no one buys them anyway.’
    I put the glasses on and the world goes purple, just the way I like it. I nod at the kid in the chair. He shrugs.
    Then Lucifane is walking out of the room and I’m following her. We head down some more stairs, the music becoming a dull throb as we leave it behind. At the bottom is an enormous pillared hallway, with a chandelier like a floating iceberg, though it probably doesn’t work. Everything is in darkness here, and Luci passes me a skull candle. She lights one for herself and walks on, leaving me standing there like Hamlet.
    â€˜Daniel, what is this place?’ Simon says.
    â€˜Squat,’ I whisper in reply, the realisation suddenly hitting me. But, as ever, Si’s still a century or two behind me.
    â€˜Squat? Why should I wish to squat, Daniel?’
    I ignore him. Lucifane has turned in the doorway of an enormous marble and gold tap kitchen and is looking at me. Right now, Si’s going to have to increase his vocabulary on his own.
    But just as I’m about to follow her in, I stop and look back down the hall. At the end of it is an ancient wooden door, a door that is not only bolted, but – the flickering candlelight shows – actually barricaded shut with a mass of antique furniture, bin bags and junk.
    â€˜What’s that?’ I say.
    â€˜The cellar,’ Lucifane replies, with an undecipherable look at the sealed door. Then she goes into the kitchen.
    â€˜Oka-a-ay,’ I say. ‘You don’t want people in the cellar. But… why pile stuff against the door?’
    â€˜Indeed,’ murmurs Si, at my side. ‘It is almost as if they want to keep something
out
.’
    Luci ignores the question.
    â€˜We only ’ave herbal tea,’ she says instead, as she plugs a kettle into an extension lead that runs in through an open window. Somehow I just know it’s plugged into some forgotten socket in the hotel next door. Then she lights more candles, in jam jars this time, making shadows dance round the grotesquely fabulous luxury kitchen.
    â€˜I never drink anything else,’ I lie. ‘Nice place you’ve got here.’
    â€˜It is criminal for a house this size to be left empty,’ she says, slightly defensively.